The i-Deception in Brazil

Last week Claro (Telmex) and Vivo (Telefônica) annouced the prices and their (slavery) plans for the “new” iPhone 3G in Brazil. For those who don’t know, the brazilians didn’t have a chance to buy the Jesus phone until now, even the oldest one (feels wierd call this awsome gadget “old”). I wonder why it takes so long… I’ll blame the iraq war and the recent 1929 moment on the market.

After all this time waiting (approximately one year and six months) I’m proud to say that we have the most expensive iPhone in south-america and we are the ONLY country which will sell the iPhone just to TALK.

iPhone 3G Plans – VIVO

Plan

iPhone 8GB

iPhone 16GB

Monthly

Minutes

Data Plan

SMS

iPhone 50

U$ 750

U$ 895

U$ 35,5

50

250 MB

100

iPhone 90

U$ 700

U$ 834,5

U$ 64

90

500 MB

150

iPhone 150

U$ 649,5

U$ 789,5

U$ 81,5

150

750 MB

150

iPhone 180

U$ 649,5

U$ 764,5

U$ 109,5

180

Unlimited

150

iPhone 350

U$ 599,5

U$ 739,5

U$ 135

350

Unlimited

150

iPhone 650

U$ 499,5

U$ 639,5

U$ 180

650

Unlimited

150

iPhone 900

U$ 499,5

U$ 639,5

U$213,5

900

Unlimited

150

iPhone Full

U$ 449,5

U$ 599,5

U$ 292,5

1400

Unlimited

150

iPhone (pay
as you go)

U$ 949,5

U$ 1099,5

iPhone 3G Plans – Claro

Plans

iPhone 8GB

iPhone 16GB

Monthly

Minutes

Data Plan

SMS

iPhone 200

U$ 734,5

U$ 879,5

U$ 46,45

200

100 MB

100

iPhone 300

U$ 674,5

U$ 819,5

U$ 62,95

300

150 MB

150

iPhone 400

U$ 619,5

U$ 764,5

U$ 75,95

400

200 MB

200

iPhone (pay
as you go)

U$ 1149,5

U$ 1299,5

*R$ 1,00 BRL = U$ 1,98

From the simplest plan to the most costly it’s easy to notice that the foucus are voice and SMS. Claro has this really awsome 100MB/200MB data plans for a device that priorizes sound and video and have a full browser like Safari… in case you lost it, this is a 3G PLAN ok? and the 200 minutes you have it’s just for calling Claro to Claro. On the other way, Vivo has some better data plans with 250MB/Unlimited access with justU$ 250 monthly, making the final gadget cost around U$ 3.600, the same cost of a macbook.

We almost win the most expensive country to sell the iPhone, we lost just to Canada and some other countries because here ANATEL, the government agency for telecom regulation, limits the operators allegiance to one year max.

Said João Cox, Claro’s president, in the attempt to justify this singular plans. Sorry, but blaming the government and the taxes isn’t going to convince me at all. It’s easy to notice that both companies are taking advantage from people with good-faith in order to pay any price for the iGadget of the moment.

In US the iPhone was released by AT&T costing $199/$299 (8GB and 16GB) with a $70 plan that gives 450 minutes and unlimited data access, all these signing a contract of 24 months.

In Canada and Sweden they signed an online petition and tried to boycott the sales, here we have some iniciatives but I’m forseeing the worse. Like Lima Barreto used to say: In Brazil we don’t have a society, we have a public.

And there is more… In US, when the iPhone was released, the first ones who had a chance to test it was geeks like David Pogue and Andy Ihnatko. Here the first ones will be ex-BBBs?

I pratically give up trying to buy an iPhone here, for now one I’ll stop writing about it and I’ll be the new XPERIA fanboy, ieay windows mobile!